December 1st, 2015

We sat in silence that morning, an indifference wafting between us like the sharp, metallic smell of spilled blood.

My heart, drained of its usual fullness, beat timidly within my chest; it felt as though someone had pierced it with a straw, slowing sucking its life out.

Fidgeting with my hands, I looked around the kitchen nervously, praying that something would break the painful silence. But we sat, neither one of us daring to stir the stillness. I felt as if I would drown in her stares, the way her eyes pierced me with the daggers of truth. I knew she was right; she usually was. But I needed to believe that I could control a new destiny this time.

She had asked me recently if I felt I could be on my own. If the anxiety wouldn’t suffocate me the way Los Angeles had. If London would be any different. She urged me to speak truthfully, that there was no defeat in not being emotionally stable enough. That needing to be held was not weak. How ironic, to coddle an adult who’s struggled so obviously to find adulthood, into feeling like it is okay to remain in the care of other adults for the rest of her life.

Glancing up, I notice her gaze shift momentarily towards the built on clock of the oven. It’s early, still, but I know we both feel anxious by the passing of each minute. She brushes a hair away from her eyes before carefully setting a hand on the table, desperate to create a bridge between us. More than anything, I want to reach back to touch her, to bury my worries into the softness between her breasts, temporarily fading into the comfort of ignorance to pain.

But instead I sit, increasingly aware of how right she may be and how terrified I am to sink further from my dream. To have to wait another several months before I can find myself.